LL-L "Morphology" 2008.04.05 (05) [E]

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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Morphology" 2008.04.04 (03) [E]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Morphology
>
> While this is prominent in the case of "good" and "well", I have heard
> similar expressions using other words, e.g.
>
> Standard: "We got there quickly."
> versus: "We got there quick."
>
> And then there are generalized expressions such as "You've got to
> think smart" and "She writes great".
>
> Might this US American tendency go back to historical developments,
> especially to early distancing from British norms and early
> non-English-speaking mass immigration?

While the adverbial marking "-ly" is quite usual in Scots, unmarked
adjectives are much more usual in Scots, to the point where it would
sound wrong (or English) to use it in some circumstances:

"We got there quick."
*"We got there quickly."

"She writes grand."
*"She writes grandly." <- this isn't actually wrong but has a
                         different meaning.

Unmarked adjectives go back a long way in Scots. For example:

"Driest wud will eithest lowe." (Proverb seen at least as far back as
18C works, meaning "Driest wood will most easily catch alight".)

Often of the choices available, the "-ly" suffix seems the wrong (or at
least most unusual) one:

"He juist pat it doun saft." (He just put it down gently)
"He juist pat it doun *saftly."
"He juist pat it doun saft-like."

Something I _think_ is unusual in English that happens easily in Scots
is dropping the -ly from clearly Latin or French-derived words:

"Ye hae tae haunle it delicate."

But it seems to me that the choice of marked versus unmarked also
involves grammatical considerations:

"She wis dressed braw." (braw: beautiful, impressive)
"She wis brawly dressed."

Finally the "well/good" thing doesn't seem to occur in Scots, as the
word "fine" comes into play when discussing health:

"I'm weel."
"I'm fine."

or even:

"I'm no bad."

but not:

"I'm *guid." (Unless you mean "I'm good at football &c)

Finally, in Scots judgemental qualifiers tend not to come alone. This is
because of the longstanding tradition that you can jinx something by
praising it too much, hence the need to weaken strong qualifiers with
further qualifiers:

"I'm no bad."
"I'm no ower bad."
"I'm weel enough."
"It's a braw wee car."

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

•

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